DBfK: Proposals for emergency care show foresight
23.02.2023 17:16
With its proposals to reform emergency and acute care, the government commission has, from the perspective of the German Professional Association for Nursing Professions (DBfK), put forward far-sighted proposals that would do justice to the problems and future challenges.
“The commission’s analysis shows that the existing problems with emergency care are also due to incorrect care in other areas of health,” says DBfK Federal Managing Director Bernadette Klapper. “It is therefore urgently necessary to think about emergency and acute care across sectors and professions. Nursing competencies must be structurally anchored.”
Nurses are given a central role
The DBfK particularly welcomes the fact that nurses are given a central role in the proposals. “University-trained nurses in particular have the skills to assess care needs and control care,” says Klapper. “In our view, the emergency nursing care close to home proposed by the commission will also bring significant improvements for patients. Nurses with a master’s degree, such as advanced practice nurses and community health nurses, can take on exactly these tasks in primary care centers, for example, as soon as the course has been set in health professions and benefits law.”
“We see that people keep coming to emergency rooms because they don’t know where else they can get help or because they are poorly cared for with a chronic illness. “You have to go to the primary care structures here,” demands Klapper. “Health kiosks in affected districts or primary care centers in rural areas that work interprofessionally and can be managed by community health nurses are the method of choice and therefore, in our view, must come first.”
When realigning emergency care, staffing and the mix of qualifications would also have to be taken into account. “Emergency care is a reserve service, which is why staffing requirements must be recorded and regularly evaluated regardless of the average workload. Now federal and state governments must show that they have the courage for these far-sighted and necessary reforms,” said Klapper.